I’ll be at @catconworldwide this weekend Aug 12-13 in Pasadena with this brand new pin! I’ll also be selling tote bags, dresses, notepads and more at booth TT66 in the artist village! Come check it out and see some cats!
A group of rough looking boys walked past me today and all I heard of their conversation was “he’s got that anxiety disorder bro so I went with him so he’d be more comfortable” and it made me realise the world isn’t all that bad
The pet store I worked at had a pen with rabbits near the front door. On every side of the pen were huge signs saying “You can pet me, but don’t pick me up!” One day two absolutely huge guys came in and one immediately reaches into the pen to grab a rabbit. Before i could say anything his friend grabbed his arm and asked him “did you see the sign?” He said “yeah! it says that you can pick them up but don’t pet them!” Then he went quiet for a moment and softly said “I didn’t read it right did I?” And his friend just puts his arm on his shoulder and said “its ok, i know you’ve got that thing where words get mixed up. Let just pet these cute lil shits” And I still haven’t gotten over that interaction.
I was walking my dog through Boston bc he likes the likes car rides. He’s a little thing tbh we call him short and long. So this huge scary man with a full beard approaches me like “hey can my buddy and I pet your dog? He gets nervous around dogs but your’s is so small I think it’s a good place to start.” Ofc I was like “yes he’s very friendly!” So this guy brings his equally big friend over and they sit on the floor while this man looks terrified of my tiny dog so big man number one asks “can I pick him up?” And i say yes so he picks him up and puts him on man number two’s lap and man number two is abt to freak out and his friend straight up just goes “hey man, it’s okay just relax I’d never let anything hurt you. He’s a good boy.” I’ll never forget it ever bc I know that man looked at me (5’3 , glasses, probably wearing a sweater vest) and my dog (kinda goofy looking little thing) and was like ‘ah yes the two least intimidating living things I’ve seen in Boston all day he’ll feel relaxed around them’ and went out of his way to help his friend. It makes me so happy
My husband had this Dungeons and Dragons group ages ago, and one of the guys was TERRIFIED of cats. The moment he sees one he freezes up and can barely breathe. Said guy is almost seven feet tall and solid wall of muscle. Whenever he came over I’d put the cats in the bedroom and chill out with a book because my cats don’t like being shut away without one of us.
One of my cats was pawing at the door and meowing loudly, an indication she REALLY needs to use the litter box. I let her out and decide, hey, I’m hungry, and decide to the kitchen. I forgot to shut the bedroom door.
Next thing I hear is the group going completely silent. My husband very calmly asks me to come over and help him gather our two cats up. I go over to where the group is and my black cat, Cacoa, is rubbing up against the guy’s leg, purring, and doing her “let me on your lap” meow. The other cat, Jasper, is sitting at the window, chilling out. I go over and pick up Cacoa and tell the big dude she’s harmless, loves laps, and would be thrilled if he pet her. Very slowly he touches my cat’s face, and she leans right into his hand. He then pets her back and sighs because she’s really soft and purring like mad. After a few minutes he asks how to pick her up and if it’s okay if she sits on his lap.
He spent the next six hours spoiling my cat. The next week he showed up with cat treats and toys because he fell in love with the cats. He told me he was doing some research on house cats, and even talked to a vet about them. A couple months later he adopted two cats and was as thrilled and excited as a new parent.
Oh no a new one!!!
Blessed post.
I used to work at this stable for icelandic horses and every now and then this man would turn up by the field to just watch the horses. One time I walked by him as I was going to get the horses inside, and he went ”I always wanted to learn how to ride but I’m afraid of horses because they’re so huge. If I could ride ponies like this, maybe I’d dare but now I’m too big and heavy for them.” You should have seen his face when I told them that actually they’re not ponies, just small horses and they could totally carry him. His face just lit up. Next thing I’m helping him to get on back. Today he knows how to ride.
A lot of pets will ignore you, but only a cat will follow you from room to room and check your lines of vision to make absolutely certain that you can see them ignoring you.
theyre not ignoring you! this is actually just a cats way of saying they want to keep you company without infringing on your personal space. its the equivalent of going to a friends house while you both separately scroll through tumblr, even though youre glad to be together. alternatively the cat could be curious about what you are doing, but shy to make its presence known. either way the cat is paying very close attention to you!
this made me feel better
😺
I don’t understand why cats will have everything they do demonized no matter how innocent it is
It’s because they are hypersensitive introverts, and humans are mostly social extroverts.
Hypersensitive, introverted humans are often mistaken for antisocial, and as a species, we are myopic and anthropomorphize EVERYTHING.
Semi-social animals are not naturally intuitive to humans.
Dog packs very closely mirror a nuclear human family, made up of a mother and father and their pups, who leave to find their own mates and start their own packs as they mature beyond young adult hood.
Pigeon flocks are like a villiage comprized of one big, extended family, where children mostly stay close and new birds marry in.
Cats don’t work that way. There is no firmly set social structure for more social domestic cats to fall back on. None of the species they are thought to come from are naturally social. They mate, have kittens, and those families disperse to the four winds as soon as the young become self sufficient.
We have selected for higher tolerance to crowding and confinement, but that does not a social structure make.
A group of cats is more like random collage dorm or house mates. Whether or not they get along and how many the group can support long term depends on how well their individual personalities mesh, regardless of blood relation.
Kittens are more out going and have more energy than adult cats, but as they age, being playful and taking the risk of being friendly takes more energy than they have, so they go from being willing to play with every one to prefering the company of favorite familiar entities that have taken the time to learn about that individuals needs and preferences.
Humans, who naturally form close knit pack bonds, are generally out going, and do their very damnedest to form life long bonds of friendship see a cat’s intense curiosity and wary shyness of approach as stalkerish, and its need for quiet solitude when overstimulated (coupled with just *how* fast they become overstimulated) as fickleness, and are completely heartbroken when a friendly, out going kitten grows into a relatively shy, reserved cat.
With no effort to understand, what the average human sees is a sly, untrustwothy animal that is friendly one second, and warninglessly aggressive the next, not because there actually was no warning, but because feline body language is very subtle.
Once again, due to a cat’s sensitivity.
To a cat, humans are VERY loud, over the top dramatic, and socially dense as a fucking brick.
They have to scream EVERYTHING to get across to most of us, and that shit is exhausting.
The fact that they do make that stressful and exhausting effort proves that the ones who like us actually love us VERY much! Just not in a way that big, loud, oblivious drama queens easily pick up on.
Reblogging to the pet blog because animal behavior.
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